Modigliani at the cinema: a new film about the artist soon to be directed by Johnny Depp | Knowledge of the Arts

25 years after directing his first feature film The Brave in which he starred with Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp will direct a biopic on Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. The film will be co-produced by Al Pacino and Barry Navidi, reveals The Hollywood Reporter. A tribute to the cursed painter.

After a long hiatus due to court cases, Johnny Depp returns as a director. 25 years ago, he staged The Brave, a 1997 film in which he starred with Marlon Brando, Elpidia Carillo, Frederic Forrest and Marshall Bell. Today, it is to Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) that the future feature film by the American actor, director and producer will be dedicated. Adapted from the play by Dennis McIntyre, the film will be co-produced by Hollywood star Al Pacino and producer Barry Navidi. The cast will be revealed soon, and filming will begin in spring 2023, in Europe.

A look back at the artist’s year 1916

Like a Jacques Becker who, in 1958, shot Montparnasse 19, where he painted the drowning of Modigliani (played by Gérard Philipe) in art, love and alcohol, Johnny Depp in turn intends to tell the story and the torments of the accursed painter. But, unlike Becker’s film, which focuses on the – moreover fictionalized – relationship between Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne, Johnny Depp’s film will focus on the year 1916 and will be inspired by Dennis McIntyre’s play, Modigliani: A Play in Three Acts (1980). A challenge for the director who is only too aware that ” it was a life of great hardship, but also of eventual triumph – a universal human story that all viewers can relate to » and who says « incredibly honoured, and truly humbled, to [la] wear on screen “.

A tribute to Modigliani

In an unmistakable style, his characters with empty eyes are recognizable without hesitation, which contributes to the painter’s fame, and surely also to Johnny Depp’s choice to work on an artist so well known to the general public. Born in 1884 into a liberal Jewish family from Livorno in Tuscany which encouraged his artistic vocation, and died at the age of 35 in 1920 of tuberculous meningitis, Amedeo Modigliani, passionate about poetry and fond of art in the broad sense, arrived in Paris in 1906 with La Divine Comedy of Dante, the sonnets of Petrarch and Ronsard. He met Cézanne and the bohemian life in Montmartre and then in Montparnasse. If, at this time, Paris knows the revolution of the Fauves, he does not adhere to it but frequents Derain, Picasso, Apollinaire, Salmon, Max Jacob, as well as Brancusi.

Amedeo Modigliani, Seated Nude, circa 1916, oil on canvas, 92.4 x 59.8 cm, Courtauld Institute of Art

The genius of “Dédo” (as his family liked to call him) was beaten down by poverty and alcohol. Moreover, as seductive as he was fantastic, the great drinker shared many evenings with Francis Carco, André Salmon or Blaise Cendrars. The latter, moreover, reports in Backpacking: “Soon we were inseparable… It’s crazy how much we were able to drink, Modigliani and I, and when I think about it, I’m appalled”. And Cocteau said of him that he “only thought about art” and “We never wondered where he came from. He was from Montparnasse. He haunted a crossroads where the spirit blows. A Montparnasse legend who will also be honored during an exhibition event entitled “Modigliani Up Close”, which will take place from October 16 to January 29, at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia (United States).

Amedeo Modigliani, Jean Cocteau, 1916, oil on canvas, 81.3 x 104 cm, Princeton University Art Museum